Round 1 Analysis: Supreme Court Hotness Bracket

Welcome back to the Round One Analysis of Hot Supreme Court Justices! This week we’re sponsored by Women. Women: They’ve Been Trying to Keep Abusers Off the Court for Decades, Without Success, but Gosh Darn They Keep Trying and we Love Them for It. We’ve seen a very different response to our Hot Supreme Court Justice bracket than we did for Hot Kennedys, with comments like, “idk if I can do this one, it's too political. The Kennedys are just empty vessels for america's dreams” and “there were some rounds that were really painful. Like they were both super cross eyed and looked like Jack the Ripper.” What do you think Molly and Isabel, did we make a mistake with this bracket or are people going to grow to love it?

Molly: I absolutely think people are going to grow to love it. Never have we needed, as a nation, to depoliticize the court more. Because if we don’t depoliticize it, we’ll slowly just become catatonic as the existential horror overtakes all of our senses when we realize we entered the wrong parallel timeline at the turn of the millenium. So, onward! (Besides, the challenge of ranking a group of people vastly dominated by ghosts of Victorian children who haunt dolls will keep our brains young and fresh!)

Isabel: Sadly for the bracket the joy of the vote is taking a direct hit due to the tense Supreme Court situation we’ve all been watching play out this week. Additionally, the Kennedy bracket had an undeniable aesthetic advantage over the Justices bracket. Some of these folks are a tad hard on the eyes! That said—the world has never needed a lighthearted and politically immune ranking of the Supreme Court Justices more!

Bella: Before we go any further, I’d like to remind everyone that this is a bracket of hotness, not of political opinion or judicial merit. You all allowed Justice Harlan Fiske Stone to win over Justice Clarence Thomas, and while I do not like Clarence Thomas as a person, I am bipartisan enough to admit that he is hotter than Harlan Fiske Stone. Harlan Fiske Stone looks like someone put a bike pump into his robes and blew them up. He looks like Old Jack Doughnagy. He looks like he gives out apples on Halloween. I can’t trust you people!

Molly: Clarence Thomas is the big shocker here - I trusted our readers to vote with the highest ideal of our nation in their hearts and minds. And by that, I trusted you all to be shallow, harsh, and judge based on physical features not moral merit. Harlan Fiske Stone looks like a corrupt Minister of Magic and is objectively not hotter than Clarence Thomas.

When you’re right, you’re right.

Isabel: Put your moral opinions aside and embrace your shallow judgment side! This isn’t the Supreme Court, it’s the true highest court in the land—The Hotness Court.

Bella: Justice Benjamin Cardozo won over Justice Stephen Breyer, which I have to say, gave me some comfort. I thought I was falling victim to the Familiarity Exception to Hotness, thinking Cardozo was hot because I see his picture every day when I go to school. It’s good to know you all think Cardozo is hot as well.

Isabel: Breyer is objectively not hot. He is the opposite of sexy. He makes me feel less hot just looking at him. But Bella, Cardozo is not as hot as your comments imply he is.

Molly: We have to remember, most of these matches are a head-to-head competition between two not-hot people. So when someone wins a round it does not classify them as “hot,” simply “more hot than this other scarecrow looking fellow.” Obviously it will always be another fellow because all the ladies of the Supreme Court are transcendent goddesses. All this to say, Stephen Breyer is wonderful but had no chance in hell of winning a fair race in the Supreme Court Hotness Bracket.

Bella: Speaking of the fact that I go to Cardozo, my Civil Procedure professor said of Justice Alito, “it’s hard to find a good picture of him. Not because he’s ugly, but because he’s usually scowling. Or wearing sunglasses.” Little does she know that Justice Alito absolutely trounced Justice Stevens. What do you guys think, should I send my Civil Procedure professor the bracket? My instinct says no, but my desire to spread the awareness of hot justices says yes.

Isabel: My concern for your future political career also says “no”. Also basically everyone looks hotter scowling and/or wearing sunglasses, so the fact that those things don’t make Alito hotter is not good.

Molly: Objectively you should not. I use objectively pretty fast and loosely here on the blog but I actually mean it now. You have aspirations that I want you to achieve and this will absolutely hamper those. Once you pass the bar you can bring this into the wider public consciousness. Also, I agree with Isabel’s great point about Alito—sunglasses are supposed to make everyone better looking.

Bella: I am shocked and dismayed that Justice Hugo Black lots to Justice Warren Burger, who’s jowls are too numerous to count. Hugo Black is a distinguished, intelligent-looking justice and I cannot believe he has been disrespected in this manner.

Molly: I don’t know, Justice Warren Burger has a sort of Old Hollywood glamor about him. I can picture his face on a bottle of, say, organic salad dressing.

You DARE to compare crusty Warren Burger to this absolute specimen of man?

Bella: There was one person who voted for Justice Roger Taney over Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, and I’m not angry, I just want to talk. Show yourself you coward and you explain to me how The Crypt Keeper is hotter than my tall Arizona Beauty.

Isabel: Maybe they were using a new computer and clicked the wrong person…?

Molly: Probably a wrong click. I was voting with a friend who will remain unnamed when they went to go poke my phone screen to make fun of Justice John McLean and accidentally voted for him. So anecdotally, very possible to make an accidental selection.

Bella: And two of our voters voted for Justice John McLean over Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I mean, honestly what is wrong with you people?

Molly: Again, one of those was a mistake and the person who made it was loudly and publicly humiliated about their lack of muscle control. That other one though, insanity.  

Isabel: I won’t defend this travesty. Disgusting.

Bella: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes won over William Rufus Day, in what I’m calling The Battle of the Mustaches. I just realized William Rufus Day looks a lot like John Waters and I like him a lot more now. But ultimately, Holmes’ mustache won out.

Isabel: I’m really creeped out by Day, so I’m glad we don’t have to look at him anymore. Happy to see such a luscious mustache advance.

John Waters or William Rufus Day? Who can tell!

Bella: I hope this bracket has been a nice distraction from the abject horror we’re facing with the Kavanaugh nominations. I’m in hell, I imagine everyone else is too so let’s just all move on to Round Two and pretend that Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are going to do the right thing and vote against Kavanaugh.

Isabel: Hear, hear!